Flooded!

Anne Gossett || ||
 * || =//Flooded!//=

Overview
//You receive the following letter at work:// Wow! That is quite the challenge. //Flooded!// is a simulation game that will allow you as the new floodplain administrator to make decisions about floodplains and see the consequences of your actions in the fictitious community of Pleasantville.

Instructional Objective
In //Flooded!//, the participants will learn: • the types of decisions that must be made by floodplain administrators • the consequences of those decisions • how previous decisions (not necessarily their own) can affect floods

Learners
This game is designed for new floodplain administrators and community officials whose communities have recently joined or are considering joining the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Typically these two groups will have little experience with floodplain administration. It is not uncommon for the floodplain administrator to be hired for another position and be given the role of floodplain administrator as an extra duty. Communities that join or consider joining the NFIP recognize that flooding can be a hazard in their community and can cause significant damage. However, many community officials (i.e. mayor, council member, building inspector) also have many other responsibilities and do not devote a lot of time to flood issues unless there is a flood. The players interest in the topic will also vary. Some participants will be looking forward to learning more about managing a flood control plan, but other participants may be reluctant or even negative about taking on this responsibility.

The learners will be adults of all ages and of varied educational backgrounds. Some learners will be college educated with engineering, hydrology, or water resources degrees, while other participants may only have a high school diploma. The amount of computer gaming experience will also vary considerably with this group. It is anticipated that only a small segment of the floodplain administrators will have experience with computer or online games.

Previous computer and online is not required to play //Flooded!// The game interface is easy to learn and the game is designed for participants of any experience or education level. In fact, experienced floodplain administrators may also want to play //Flooded!// just so they can simulate the affects of different flood control decisions on a community.

Context of Use
//Flooded!// is designed for informal use in an office on a computer with internet access. It could also be played at home or as an activity in a class on the basics of floodplain administration. Players of //Flooded!// should have introductory knowledge of floodplain administration. For example, they should already be familiar with the different types of flood zones and the basic requirements a community must meet in order to join the NFIP. They can acquire this prior knowledge through a presentation or conversation with officials from the National Flood Insurance Program, other individuals involved in floodplain administration or research and reading on their own.

Due to the random factors that are included in the game, it can be played multiple times. In addition, the different decisions made by the players during the game will introduce additional variability in the game results. This game is designed to work on a Windows platform.

Scope
//Flooded!// features a small city, Pleasantville, and how the decisions made by the floodplain administrators each month can increase the risk of a flood and flood damage. At the beginning of the game the players can select a specific locale (coastal, plains or mountains) for Pleasantville or let the computer randomly select a setting for them. Each setting will include street layouts and flood zones in addition to a basic set of features. This set of features will include: • Water sources such as a river-fed lake, a river and 1 – 3 streams • Residential, industrial and commercial office building areas • Green spaces such as a park(s) or golf course • A hospital, school, city hall, and library

The game will be divided into rounds which each represent one month. The full game will take 30 – 45 minutes to play and will cover a 12 month period. At the end of the game, the players will have the option to continue playing or ending the game and seeing their score. Since the target audience for this game are public officials and who could be interrupted frequently, there will also be an option to resume an earlier game that ended early.

During each round, the players will be presented with a scenario to handle or a decision to make as the floodplain administrator. The players will be able to visit two to four locations in the city to get the opinions of key stakeholders or visit external websites to gain additional information.

The content of the game will focus on general floodplain management principles as promoted by the National Flood Insurance Program. The players will not be expected to make budget decisions about how much money to spend on a specific flood control project.

Object of the Game
The goal of the game is for the player to reduce the flood danger for their community as much as possible and to keep it low.

Competing Products
There are two games, FloodRanger and FloodSim, that are very similar to //Flooded!// They are similar because they are designed to make people aware of the potential devastation caused by floods. They also include alternate types of settings and a simulation of floods.

//Flooded!// is different from these two existing games because it focuses on flooding in the United States and applying the principles of the National Flood Insurance Program. Both FloodSim and FloodRanger are produced and based on flooding situations in the United Kingdom. They both include budget decisions such as how much money to spend on specific projects. FloodRanger even includes climate change scenarios.

//Flooded!// will have a smaller focus. In //Flooded!// the players will focus more on decisions such as approving requests to build in or near floodplains, increasing freeboard, and coping with changes to the community’s flood zones.

There is also a freeware game called Disaster City where the players attempt to protect a city from a variety of disasters, not just floods. In this game, the player’s reputation, which represents their score, rises or falls based on how well they handle the disasters. The significant difference between Disaster City and //Flooded!// is that the latter game will focus on just one type of disaster.

Design Details
//Flooded!// will included street maps similar to Google maps or other online mapping programs with flood zones overlaid on them. The players will be able to use standard navigation to zoom in to street views of the buildings and areas or to zoom out to a citywide view. While real cities can be used for the basic street layouts, the names of streets and other features will need to be changed so the area is not readily identifiable. An algorithm will randomly generate the flood zones for each game. At the beginning of the game the learner, who will be playing the role of floodplain administrator, will select the topography for the city of Pleasantville. They will also decide if they want to use audio to hear the viewpoints of the stakeholders and decide if they want to use an avatar. Audio and avatars are optional choices.

Stakeholders are non-player characters such as the Mayor, City Council Members, Property Owners, and Subdivision Developers. These characters will offer opinions or advice to the floodplain administrator. The players will be able to read the viewpoints of the stakeholders or hear an audio version of their opinions.

The players can navigate around the town, including zooming in to street-level, without using an avatar. If they elect to use an avatar the players will be directed to select a male or female avatar. An avatar of the correct gender dressed in business casual clothes will be randomly generated for them.

The initial game screen will be an overview of the city showing the street layout with flood zones. Flood zones will be shown as a light blue until a flood occurs when they turn red to indicate that flood damage is occurring. Since the flood zones are generated randomly for each game, it is likely that the city will already have some risk of a flood occurring. Just as in real-life, subdivisions or other structures may have already been built in an area that is designated as a flood zone before the new floodplain administrator takes over.

Each month the floodplain administrator will be presented with a scenario such as a flood actually occurring or be asked to make a decision related to floodplain management. If a flood occurs, the extent of the flood zones on the city will be shown on the map. The player can expect that the decisions they will need to make in the next two to four months will be focused on reducing the amount of future flood damage to the affected areas. For example, they may be asked to select a neighborhood for a buy-out program or to approve permits to rebuild in the flooded area. Each time the player is asked to make a decision, they will have the opportunity to do further research by talking with stakeholders or visiting external websites.

If they decide to investigate further, two to four stakeholders will volunteer to share their viewpoint on the situation. Players not using an avatar will see an overview of the city with the building or location of the stakeholder highlighted. They can then click on the structure or location to learn the stakeholder’s viewpoint. If the player is using an avatar, they will be taken to their last location and see a small overview map that highlights the locations of the stakeholders. They can then navigate their avatar to the desired location. In both the avatar and non-avatar versions of the game, the Library will be the location for access to the external websites. The players will return to the monthly screen to make their decision. An algorithm will adjust the Flood Risk bar based on their decision. Decisions that put people in danger such as building a nursing home in a flood zone will increase the flood risk for the city while electing to use flood prone areas for a park or other green space will lower the flood risk.

At any point in the game, the players can stop by clicking the Stop the Game button. This will give the player the option to stop the game permanently or to save the game and return to it later. They can also use the Stop the Game button to pause and see their feedback up to that point if they are struggling. Feedback on the player’s performance will point out areas that are trigging a flood risk and suggest better uses for the land in those areas.

Flooded! will be developed in Flash, the audio files will be recorded in MP3 format, and the graphics will be JPEGs.

Motivational Issues
One of the key motivators for playing //Flooded!// will be that it is relevant to the player current situation. In the ARCS model capturing the participant’s attention and relevancy are the first two steps in motivating them. Acquiring a new role as floodplain administrator or joining the National Flood Insurance Program will definitely grab their attention. The players will have an immediate need to know the information being covered in the game. This is also particularly true if there is a lot of building or land development in the community or if they anticipate a flood event occurring in the near future.

A second motivator included in the game is feedback. Both Csikszentmihalyi and Keller and Suzuki identified the presence of feedback as an important motivator. //Flooded!// will even give the players control in deciding when to receive their feedback. The game includes an option to view feedback on their performance during the game or the players can choose wait until the end of the game. The game is also relatively short only 12 months, so the most decisions a player will be asked to make before receiving feedback is 12.

//Flooded!// will also appeal to the players curiosity and desire to experiment in a non-threatening manner. Malone and Lepper observe that “curiosity is the most direct and intrinsic motivation for learning.” (p. 235) Since //Flooded!// is just a game and no lives will be lost or real property damaged, it is a safe environment to experiment with different decisions. The players can even reverse the stated goal of reducing the risk of flood damage to a community and try to intentionally drive up the flood risk for a community.

Design Process
//Flooded!// went through several different designs during this project. At first, I wanted to use cartoon-like images so that the settings would be generic and the players would not automatically dismiss the game because the topography or setting did not match their particular real-life situation. However, I later realized that many of the floodplain administrators do not have a lot of computer gaming experience and making it too cartoonish would be a turn-off. This opinion was reinforced by the feedback from one of my classmate’s review of the game. I decided to use real city layouts that have a look and feel similar to Google maps, which I believe the audience members will be familiar with using. The navigation will also work in a similar manner.

Another issue I encountered related to the graphics for the game was choosing colors for the flood zones. My first inclination was to use blue since it was water, however I needed a way to distinguish the flood zones from the lakes and ponds in the area and also find a way to highlight the areas that were flooded during a flood event. After experimenting with a several different shades of colors, I eventually decided to go with light blue for the flood zones while a flood was not occurring and use red for areas that were currently flooded. The Flood Risk bar uses red, a color traditionally used to represent something important and often bad, so I felt that a flood that causes damage could also be shown as red.

During development I temporarily toyed with the idea of //requiring// the players to use avatars that could move through the city at street level similar to Second Life. I quickly decided that this should not be a required element because it could easily become a distraction in the game. I worried that the players would spend too much time trying to learn to maneuver the avatars instead of focusing on making wise decisions in the game. Keeping the use of avatars as optional will help keep the interest of the younger players who like a little more excitement in their games, but will not scare off players with less computer experience.

While preparing the game I searched the suggested websites for competing products and also did a general search through the Google search engine for related games. It was through searching Google that I discovered the UK games on flooding. I also discussed my basic ideas with two floodplain managers who strongly disliked the idea of using avatars for the game.

If I were to do this class project over, I would try to pick a topic that has broader appeal. While the floodplain administrator role is an important one, it is very narrow in its scope and I think it would be fun to devise a game that interested more people. In future game designs, I would recommend doing the search for comparable games earlier in the process. I was surprised to discover two games related to floodplains from the UK. Even though, they do not apply the current NFIP standards used in the US it was interesting to see two games based on the same topic for a country that is much smaller than ours.